The final Government guidance on the new environmental legislation (exemption orders) is now available at www.defra.gov.uk/publications/2011/09/14/pb13624-ep-guidance-radioactive/

If you are attending the workshops on the exemption orders, please try and read the guidance in advance.

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London - Tuesday 27th September - SOLD OUT

Edinburgh - Wednesday 12th October

Leeds - Thursday 3rd November

 Update Report

DECC and the Devolved Administrations of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland would like to take this opportunity to let you know that the Exemption Order review is now complete and that revised legislation will come into effect on 1 October 2011.  The legislation consists of:

-       The Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2011

-       The Radioactive Substances Act Amendment (Scotland) Regulations 2011

-       The Radioactive Substances Exemption (Scotland) Order 2011

-       The Radioactive Substances Act 1993 (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2011

-       The Radioactive Substances Exemption (Northern Ireland) Order 2011

Scottish legislation is already on the Legislation website (www.legislation.gov.uk), as is the draft version of the England and Wales Regulations (final version to follow shortly); Northern Ireland legislation will be available in the near future.

There are transitional provisions incorporated in the legislation, which will allow existing users six months to transfer to the new system and further details on these arrangements will be made available by the environmental regulators.

A single UK government-wide document setting out how the environmental regulators should interpret the legislation will be published in mid-August.  In parallel, the environmental regulators are producing a suite of UK-wide guidance for users; this should be available on a similar timescale.

DECC will be updating the webpages to reflect the changes and will provide links to the guidance.  There are also going to be a series of implementation workshops (in conjunction with SRP and the UK environmental regulators) to help users understand these proposals.

We understand that there will be queries about the new regime but urge users to wait until the guidance is available before contacting government or the environmental regulators over matters of clarification.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank stakeholders for all your contributions over the last few years. We will shortly have a much more risk-informed, transparent clearance and exemption regime.  This would not have been possible without your help and support.  It has taken a while but we are very grateful for your patience and perseverance – we made it in the end!

With thanks,

EO Review Team

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